


The Molt

by Rotpeach



Series: The Great Tumblr Rehoming of 2018 [45]
Category: Boyfriend to Death (Visual Novels)
Genre: Cannibalism, Gen, Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-10 01:39:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17416544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rotpeach/pseuds/Rotpeach
Summary: The "You killed Lawrence instead" ending.





	The Molt

There is a rabbit in the heart of that human body, soft and timid, and his little rabbit heart beats like a hummingbird’s wings on the inside of a cage, like the skittering of insects across a corpse.

He is so small like this, bound and kneeling, he is so frightened that he avoids your gaze like poison ivy, his rabbit eyes darting around the room, at ferns and flowers and climbing vines. He grew a forest in the city so he’d have somewhere to hide, and he lured you into these fake woods with his cottontail, showed you only the rabbit until he had time to slip back into his predator skin.

But he doesn’t belong in that skin. You peel it back with a paring knife, take pieces off of the back of his hands and taste how sweet it is. You tell him he looks better without it.

He cries softly behind the gag but he doesn’t say anything because rabbits do not speak.

“I should just leave,” you tell him. “That would be the right thing to do. The kind thing.” You look down at the knife in your hand, flecks of blood on your fingers and the blade. You never saw yourself here, doing this. Maybe there’s something inside of you, too, something that has been hiding in your heart and wearing your skin.

It makes you reluctant to leave the woods.

“I should leave,” you say. “I really, really should.” You wrap his hair around one hand and give a harsh tug, making him cry out as his gaze is wrenched upwards, and his eyes are so blue, so pretty like this, shining with tears. “But I can’t, and I don’t know why.”

He starts making frantic rabbit noises, soft whimpering the way humans do when they plead for their lives, and you feel nothing. You look down at the knife again, and then you look at him.

You see that little rabbit so clearly now, so close to the surface, but he hides desperately behind what’s left of his shell, he squirms and he struggles and he cries, and it makes you resent him more. He shouldn’t hide. He shouldn’t pretend to be something he isn’t. Rabbits do not know how to lie.

“You’ve been in the city for too long,” you mutter as you pull harder at his hair, exposing his throat. “You forgot how to be a rabbit.” You run the blade over his collarbones softly but he flinches and you cut into his skin. He squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head like he’s trying to wake from a dream and blood run down his chest and seeps into his clothes. “Should’ve stayed in the woods.”

In your mind’s eye, you are running, you are chasing a rabbit through the underbrush, and you seize him by the throat before he can reach his burrow, you hold his body tightly in both hands and when you squeeze you can feel his ribs cracking beneath your hands. 

And you know you should stop, you know you don’t belong there, you know you should leave but it’s all his fault, it’s his fault you’re stuck here, lost in the woods, it’s his fault you are squeezing and hurting him, dreaming about eating him, wetting your tongue with his blood, getting his fur between your teeth, it’s his fault you’re like this, it’s

_his fault it’s all his fault you’re a monster you’re an animal in a human’s skin and that animal is biting and clawing its way to the surface it is screaming towards the sky and crying it is crying because it never wanted to be this way it’s his fault it’s his fault it’s hIS FAULT IT’S HIS FAULTIT’S_

He makes a strangled, gurgling sound, eyelids fluttering, his body spasming beneath you, and there is blood, so much blood, spraying your shirt, pooling at your feet, a growing deep red stain down the front of his body. His throat is red and raw and mangled, bits of him underneath your nails. The knife is on the floor and your hands are digging into him, dragging through his flesh, raking through muscle. 

You are killing him. You didn’t even notice. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

“I…” You look down at your hands, at pieces of rabbit covering your fingers. “I can’t leave.”

You can’t. You know you can’t now. You have to stay in these little, fake woods because it isn’t safe for you outside of here, just like it wasn’t safe for him. You can’t risk finding a bigger, hungrier animal. You can’t make the same mistake.

Lawrence doesn’t look afraid anymore. He looks like he understands. You watch the light leave his eyes and as he slumps forward you start to tremble. You can’t leave. You can’t leave anymore. You couldn’t leave from the moment you came here, and you’re afraid that you will starve to death.

You lick your fingers and look down at the blood all over yourself thoughtfully.

You’ll have to leave eventually. You won’t be able to help it.

You’re just going to have to find more rabbits.

**Author's Note:**

> original commentary included: "how did it come to this  
> im normally such a gentle soul who would never dream of violence"


End file.
